We went about adding another 16 raised beds (all measuring 20’x3′) in the southeast corner of the garden.

In the spirit of the “Green Farm Project”, we repurposed all these old bunk bed frames and decided to use them to trellis the tomatoes!

Beans sprouted up overnight.

Peas were productive and beautiful…

The most noteworthy thing to happen in June was certainly the addition of this fabulous hoop house! It was a great collaboration between Dawn Farm, Project Grow, and Selma Cafe. So many volunteers came out and raised this in one day!

We are looking forward to an extension of the growing season under these sunny walls and plenty of fresh greens throughout the winter.

We also got a lovely garden shed for storing our tools and supplies, and also started using our point well for watering.

We started harvesting broccoli…

Potatoes were growing quickly, and we worked hard hilling them up with straw and compost.

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Here’s what happened in July:

We added three more raised beds to the original garden after we noticed some gaps between the existing beds.

This month was hot! We watched everything grow, and tried to keep up with the pesky Colorado Potato Beetle which had been attacking the potatoes and eggplant.

(Note- we use only organic methods here, so we’ve just been handpicking the beetles and keeping their population under control. While we may not be able to completely eliminate them, it has worked very well and the vegetables are looking just fine!)

Garden overview in mid-July:

The clients put together these great trellises for the cucumbers with supplies we had on hand. So thrifty!

Onions.

Tomatoes!

Beans.

That last area to be prepared was planted with corn, beans, and squash, to create a “Three Sister’s Garden”, which I’ll talk about more in a later post.

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Here we are in August already!

Herbs are growing.

We’ve got birdhouse gourds forming.

Peppers.

Tomatoes are starting to ripen.

Three sisters garden is growing fast!

We harvested the last of the broccoli recently, and we’ve planted some lettuces, carrots, beets, greens, and beans for a fall harvest.

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Whew! Keep checking our “Volunteer” section for updates. July was a slow month, but over the next two months we’ll have opportunities for helping with harvesting, food preservation, and more!